What a difference a year can make.
The Manly Sea Eagles took last year's grand final disappointment, doubled it and hand-delivered it back to the Melbourne Storm, thrashing the minor premier 40-0 in the NRL grand final yesterday.
The Sea Eagles erased the memory of last year's 34-8 loss with the record-breaking performance, which eclipsed Easts' 38-0 win over StGeorge in 1975 as the biggest grand final win in rugby league history.
Queanbeyan junior Brent Kite claimed the Clive Churchill Medal after a brilliant performance that included a try in the second half.
Canberra-born winger Michael Robertson also got his name on the scoreboard, running in three tries in 17 minutes as well as gift-wrapping a four-pointer for Manly hero Steve Menzies, who played his 349th and last game for the club.
It was a performance that defied Robertson's compact stature.
Fellow former Raider Mark Bryant earned his premiership ring with a polished performance from the bench.
A stunned Robertson struggled to come to terms with the scoreline last night.
''It's just surreal,'' Robertson said.
''I'm floating at the moment. I don't know what to think, I don't know what to say.
''It was so disappointing last year and obviously we learnt from that.'' Manly's eight-tries-to-nil romp was a fitting end to a day that saw the Canberra Raiders win the Toyota Cup premiership in the first year of the new national under-20s competition.
Back-rower Jarrad Kennedy scored a try seven minutes into golden-point extra-time, giving the Raiders a thrilling 28-24 win.
It was a fitting finish to an outstanding season for the young Raiders, who also claimed the minor premiership.
The Toyota Cup grand final threatened to overshadow the main event, but any thought of that was quickly dispelled when the two grand final teams emerged late to a huge roar from the crowd of 80,388.
The NRL's careful planning for its showpiece event was thrown into disarray when the NSW Cup grand final between the Wentworthville Magpies and Newtown Jets took more than 20 minutes of golden-point extra-time to be decided. The Magpies eventually won 12-8, but not before the Toyota Cup kick-off time had to be put back by half an hour.
The Raiders and Broncos players then had to wait on the field for several minutes before the referees emerged.
In the end it was well worth the wait for the Raiders, who came from eight points down to deliver Canberra a premiership.
Spurred on by a match-winning move called ''G-Town'', the Raiders thrilled the crowd with their attack-oriented play.
The play was invented by Goulburn duo Michael Picker and Jarrod Croker.
Kennedy described scoring the match-winning try in a grand final as ''amazing''.
''I couldn't even see in front of me, all the boys jumped on top of me and both my legs were cramping up: it was the most pain I'd had the whole game,'' he said.
''It's amazing, it's 30 weeks of hard work and sacrifice and now we've got the reward.
''It's just awesome.
''Other than playing in the NRL, this is the best thing in football.''
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